Family says they have tended Yabra grave since 1880

The descendants of a man buried in a portion of the Yabra Cemetery which is part of the Yabra Redevelopment Project have reacted to statements made last week by Acting Archaeological Commissioner Allan Moore. In an interview with News Five on January seventh Moore was asked what he would say to people who don’t want the graves of family members disturbed by the construction project. He responded that quote, “I would say that if they were so worried about it, from 1905 they could have done something about it. Clearly, this is a political thing the Department of Archaeology has no desire to enter. Because of burials being here we should have cared about our loved ones long ago.” Today, the descendants of James Harold Waight said their interest is nothing new. In a letter to News Five, seventeen descendants of James Harold Waight say their family maintained the grave since Waight’s death in July of 1880. They say their care of the burial site was uninterrupted until 1994 when the tombstone was covered by several inches of landfill as part of the Belize City Infrastructure Project. The family has since put a cross at the site. The Waight family wrote to the Minister of Tourism and Area Representative Mark Espat, on December twenty-eighth asking for his assurance that the grave “be allowed to remain undisturbed in its current location.” John Waight tells News Five although some family members have had verbal assurances from the Minister, they have yet to receive a written response. In a footnote, Waight tells us that this afternoon he discovered that someone had kicked over the cross marker on the grave. The Yabra Redevelopment Project spearheaded by Espat includes the construction of a basketball court and sporting complex as well as homes.